Small Gestures
by SkySpirit123
Summary: Kavi and Soraya during their travels in Forging the Sword; Soraya's POV. A look into an ordinary night in the life of two resistance fighters, a musing on a changing relationship, and a reflection on the impact small gestures of kindness can have.


Hello! Welcome to a much-needed addition to the Farsala fanfiction archive. I feel like this series is severely underappreciated, as well as underrepresented, so instead of being sad about it, I decided to help fix it! But seriously, the Farsala trilogy is not only one of my favorite series ever, it is also a series with a level of depth and complexity that I feel all young adult authors should try to emulate in their works. I was younger when I first read it, but I can say that Kavi, Jiaan, and Soraya's stories definitely had an impact on the way I saw and understood the world. Pretty good for three books that few people have heard of.

Anyways, this is a story that takes place in Forging the Sword, a few days after Kavi and Soraya have escaped from Dugaz (Kavi for the second time, lucky boy). I've always been interested in the dynamic between these two, and I think their changing relationship is one of the more interesting developments over the course of the books. Of course, I think they have the potential to be a wonderfully fascinating couple, but seeing as that takes things very far outside of canon, I won't be going all the way there ;) That potential, though, along with their day-to-day interaction, can be explored- and that I will do. Besides, they traveled together – for weeks – in the second and third books. There's a few missing scenes between them, methinks ;)

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><p>Soraya watched as the peddler joked easily with the aged innkeeper, Kavi leaning with one elbow resting on the counter as the bustle and flow of serving girls and customers swirled around him. A dreary, overcast day, it was busy inside the modest inn as travelers took shelter from the already soggy road between Dugaz and Setesafon. Which was all well and good for the inn's business, she supposed, but it made her spend more time than she would have liked searching for a table in the dim and smoky crowd. Settled at last into a chair near the hearth, Soraya had ordered warm stew for herself and, after a moment's thought, for the peddler as well. As she watched the harried serving girl navigate her way back toward the kitchens, Soraya reflected wryly on the fact that a year ago she would not have given a second thought to a peasant's hunger, much less take into account the fact that this particular peasant preferred beef stew over pork.<p>

Soraya's gaze drifted to the innkeeper with whom Kavi spoke, noting the openness that colored his expression as they conversed. That trust was something she had found on the faces of nearly all the villagers and townsmen that had spoken to Kavi over the course of their travels. These people's willingness to trust him struck her as decidedly ironic, given that he had been a spy – for both sides at that! – over most of the past year. In the spirit of being fair, she supposed that Kavi had technically never double-crossed the Farsalan peasants, only the Hrum and the deghans – and her father. The familiar anger came with that thought, as she knew it would, but this anger was . . . softened somehow. More like a bitterly remembered sadness than a seething desire for revenge. Oh, she would love to go on hating him, to go on believing she would avenge her father's death with the death of this peddler, but deep down, in that newly discovered part of her heart that was not quite that of a deghass anymore, she wasn't sure she could anymore. Had the seeds of forgiveness been well and truly sown?

Soraya's troubled musings were interrupted as Kavi himself collapsed with a pronounced sigh into the seat across from her. She glanced up and raised an eyebrow at his somewhat melodramatic behavior, asking a silent question.

Kavi leaned forward and, in a low voice that was hardly necessary in this din, said, "The innkeeper was telling me that patrols have started to search some of the major inns a bit north of here. They'll be looking for unusually large stockpiles of food, of course – food that is meant to be serving our army in the desert." An irritated look crossed his face. "It's right annoying when the Hrum think of things like that. Makes my job harder."

Soraya frowned. "Only north of here? Do they plan on making this a country-wide procedure?"

Kavi waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, it's barely a real "procedure" now. Just a couple of random searches so far, though I wouldn't put it past Garren to be making it regulated if they start finding what they're looking for. He seems just the type to enjoy barging into an honest businesses and taking food that may or may not be meant for a rebel army."

Soraya, suppressing a small surge of guilt at his mention of people barging into places they didn't own – she certainly had done that often enough – asked, "So they haven't found anything yet?"

Kavi, whose eyes had flicked over her face during his speech and no doubt noticed her brief discomfort, looked at her thoughtfully, then replied, "No. They ordered the searches just after a shipment had been sent out to the desert, so any suspicious stockpiles were gone. Lucky for us, but they'll probably be searching more, and Jiaan will certainly still be needing his food."

"So have them hide the stockpiles in places where the Hrum won't find them."

Kavi rolled his eyes. "Well, that's what we're working on, aren't we? The Hrum can't very well be confiscating what they can't find, nor blaming the townspeople for it either."

Soraya's snappy reply was cut off by the arrival of their stew. The serving girl pushed the bowls hastily onto the table in front of them, splashing some over the side of Soraya's before she rushed off to answer the loud complaints of a table across the room. Soraya knew for a fact that such sloppy serving in her father's household would have been inexcusable, but her would-be irritation was drowned by memories of serving in the crowded Hrum meal tent for hours on end. She too had splashed her fair share of soup over the rims of bowls, especially during her first few weeks, and had never enjoyed the reprimanding looks and words that a few Hrum soldiers had thrown her way.

As she dabbed at the splashes with her napkin, she glanced up a bit and noticed that Kavi was looking at the bowl in front of him with a startled, yet appreciative expression.

"You ordered me stew?"

Soraya looked up fully and warily replied, "Yes. I figured you were hungry."

"Beef?"

With an exasperated sigh, she responded, "You like beef best. Why, what's wrong? Did you want something else?"

"No! No. I was just . . . " Kavi studied her face with bemusement and something approaching warmth in his eyes. "Thank you."

"Not at all," Soraya responded, shifting self-consciously under his gaze. Was kindness so strange coming from her? Well, she thought, perhaps kindness towards a peasant, a year ago, would have been extraordinary. But, as even her own mind kept reminding her, she'd changed.

"Anyway," she said, quickly changing the subject, "do you have any ideas on how to get around these searches?"

Kavi's gaze finally dropped to his bowl as he lifted a spoonful of stew to his mouth and chewed, thinking before he replied. "Well, I think our best option would be using the oldest houses in the towns to store the food. _Because_," he said interrupting the question Soraya had been about to ask, "many of these older town houses were built by stone masons. Nad – I mean, I know of a few people who live in such houses, and seeing as they're cleverly built, I'm betting they have secret chambers, hidden storage areas, and other convenient places a Hrum soldier wouldn't think to look."

"That could work." Soraya said, stirring her own stew thoughtfully. "We just have to make sure the most important towns have such houses – are these stone mason places common?" Soraya knew very little about peasant housing in Farsalan towns, having really only lived in her father's manor and in the desert. This was the peddler's area of expertise.

"It'll take some asking around on my part, but I'm thinking they're common enough. And who knows? Maybe the Hrum will stop wasting their efforts on these searches after some time – Garren will be needing those soldiers in other places soon enough – and then this will turn out to be a small issue."

"Let's hope," Soraya said wryly. If the food supply to Jiaan's army became seriously jeopardized, then the Suud might be pressed to provide for them – and the Suud put enough effort into hunting and feeding themselves. She doubted they had any real chance of feeding an entire army, even the small Farsalan one. No, if this became an issue, Jiaan and his men would have to leave the desert, and then they would lose several of the few tactical advantages they had in this cursed war.

Kavi, sensing the train of her thoughts, reached over and tapped her bowl with his spoon. "Look, I'll be solving this problem in less than a month; there's no need for you to go worrying. Besides, if we can venture into Shir's Flame-begotten swamp with no money to our names and live to tell the tale, then we can take care of this small matter of the Hrum being too nosy for their own good. Right?"

Soraya's lips twitched at the reminder of their escape from Dugaz, not three days ago, and nodded.

"Good." Kavi pushed his empty bowl away from him. "Then I'm off to do some business while these travelers are still drinking. For some reason, I make my better sales to customers who've had at least two pints of ale. Can't imagine why." He winked at her, then wandered off to the bar counter with an easy stroll. Soraya watched him go, then shook her head as he dropped into smooth conversation with the patrons around him. Kavi was a born peddler, and she had no doubt that his pack would be lighter tomorrow morning when they set out again.

She finished her stew alone, nodding to the serving girl who eventually came for her and the peddler's empty bowls. Thinking to follow his advice and push worry from her mind, Soraya turned to the hearth and, after a moment of simply staring into the fire, reached out for its shilshadu. She had been needing to practice her magic, for it had been some time since she last entered the Speaker's trance. As her human cares disappeared into the fire's hungry dance, Soraya sank deeper and deeper into the trance she had learned from Maok so many months ago. It was calming to retreat inside her magic – at least, she thought briefly, when it didn't threaten her with lightning – and she remained there longer than she had intended. By the time she resurfaced, the dinning area's population had thinned considerably, and Kavi, she noticed, was no longer there. He had gone up to their room then, likely recognizing her trance and leaving her in peace before retiring. Actually, Soraya thought as she stifled a yawn, it was time she retire as well.

She climbed the stairs slowly and opened the door, looking into the room's dark interior. What she saw made her pause. Earlier that morning, she and Kavi had flipped a coin for the bed, as they always did when sleeping arrangements proved inconvenient. It was an agreement they had reached in the days following her escape from the Hrum camp and had continued to keep on this journey to Setesafon. Their current crowded inn had only had a few rooms available, and none with more than one bed, so, as per routine, they had flipped a brass foal. Kavi, with a grin too smug for Soraya's liking, had won the right to sleep on the bed that night. Surely he hadn't forgotten that? No, Soraya's resultant swat to the back of the peddler's head (his grin really had been quite infuriating) ensured that he likely hadn't forgotten his small victory.

And yet, there Kavi slept, wrapped in a thin blanket, on the wooden floor. Soraya could even make out the messy brown curls resting atop his pack in the faint, moonlit room. Closing the door carefully, she made her way to the unexpectedly available bed and slipped gratefully under the soft covers. For a long time, she just lay there, staring up at the dark ceiling and wondering at this small gesture from the peddler she hated –used to hate? – so much. The thoughts that filled her head were colored by the old revenge and grief but also by things remarkably like forgiveness, respect, and . . . friendship? Part of her was surprised and a bit wary to realize it, but another part knew this idea wasn't quite so foreign as she once thought. Perhaps to stem the flow of confusing thoughts in her mind, perhaps to act on these newfound realizations – she didn't really know which – Soraya abruptly sat up, got out of bed, and, taking one of her own blankets, brusquely threw an extra cover over Kavi's sleeping form.

Well, his blanket _had_ been far too thin – and she certainly didn't need him catching a cold in the middle of this war! He was their link to the countryside, a primary organizer of Mazad's food supplies, their main source of Hrum information . . .

But it wasn't Kavi's importance to the Farsalan resistance that made her smile before finally drifting off to sleep.

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><p>Feedback would be wonderful. Thanks!<p> 


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